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Of Class Structure A General Framework for the Analysis of Class Structure ERIK OLIN WRIGHT THE POINT OF DEPARTURE: NEO-MARXIST ANALYSES OF CLASS STRUCTURE At the heart of the recent resurgence of Marxist theorizing on the problem of class has been what might be termed the &dquo;embarrassment&dquo; of the middle class. For all of their disagreements, all Marxists share a basic commitment to a polarized abstract concept of class relations. Yet, at least at first glance, the concrete class structures of contempo- rary advanced capitalist societies look anything but polarized.l This empirical evidence of a large middle class has provided critics of Marx- ism with one of their principal arguments against Marxist class theory. In response, a variety of solutions to the problem of the middle class have been proposed in the recent Marxist debates. Without going into any detail, it is possible to identify four broadly different strategies that Marxists have adopted to deal with the concep- tual problem of nonpolarized class positions within a logic of polarized class relations.2 First, the class structure of advanced capitalist societies really is polarized; the &dquo;middle class&dquo; is strictly an ideological illusion. This position deals with the problem of the middle class by denying the I would like to express my particular thanks to Robbie Manchin for an intense Sunday afternoon’s discussion of the problem of class and exploitation which led to the writing of this paper. His ideas in that discussion were particularly important for developing the concept of &dquo;organization assets&dquo; discussed below. The arguments have also benefited from comments by Michael Burawoy, John Roemer, Adam Przeworski, Robert Van Der Veen, Phillipe von Parijs, Jon Elster, Andrew Levine, Ron Aminzade, Richard Lachmann, Daniel Bertaux and Perry Anderson. Sections of this paper will appear in my forthcoming book, Classes (London: New Left Books, 1985). The research was supported in part by a grant from the National Science Foundation, SES 82-08238, and grants from the Wisconsin Alumni Research Committee. Downloaded from pas.sagepub.com at Purdue University on April 20, 2015 384 problem itself. Second, the middle class should be viewed as a segment of some other class, typically a &dquo;new petty bourgeoisie&dquo;or &dquo;new work- ing class.&dquo;3 In this strategy the basic class map of capitalism remains intact, but significant internal differentiations within classes are added to the analysis of class structure. Third, the middle class is really a new class in its own right, completely distinct from either the bourgeoisie, the proletariat, or the petty bourgeoisie. Sometimes this class is given a specific name, such as the Professional Managerial Class,4 sometimes it is simply called &dquo;the New Class.&dquo;5 By adding entirely new classes to the class structure, this approach more radically alters the class map of capitalism than the class-segment strategy. Fourth, the positions aggre- gated under the popular rubric &dquo;middle class&dquo; are not really in a class at all. Rather they should be viewed as locations that are simulta- neously in more than one class, positions that I have characterized as &dquo;contradictory locations within class relations.&dquo;6 Managers, for example, should be viewed as simultaneously in the working class (in so far as they are wage laborers dominated by capitalists) and in the capitalist class (in so far as they control the operation of produc- tion and the labor of workers). This strategy departs most from the traditional Marxist vision of class structure since the very meaning of a &dquo;location&dquo; is altered: there is no longer a one-to-one correspondence between structural locations filled by individuals and classes. I no longer feel that this fourth solution is satisfactory. Specifically, it suffers from two important problems that it shares with most other neo-l~Iarxist conceptualizations of class structure: it tends to shift the analysis of class relations from exploitation to domination; and it implicitly regards socialism-a society within which the working class is the &dquo;ruling class&dquo;-as the only possible alternative to capitalism. Domination versus Exploitation Throughout the development oi the concept of contradictory class locations I have insisted that this was a reformulation of a distinctively Marxist class concept. As part of the rhetoric of such an enterprise, I affirmed the relationship between class and exploitation. Nevertheless, in practice the concept of contradictory locations within class relations rested almost exclusively on relations of domination rather than exploitation. Reference to exploitation functioned more as a back- ground concept to the discussion of classes than as a constitutive element of the analysis of class structures. Managers, for example, were basically defined as a contradictory location because they were simul- taneously dominators and dominated. Domination relations were also decisive in defining the class character of &dquo;semiautonomous employ- ees&dquo;-locations that, I argued, were simultaneously petty bourgeois and Downloaded from pas.sagepub.com at Purdue University on April 20, 2015 385 proletarian by virtue of their self-direction within the labor process- since &dquo;autonomy&dquo; defines a condition with respect to domination. This same tendency of substituting domination for exploitation at the core of the cone. of class is found in most other neo-Marxist conceptual- izations of class structure. For some people, of course, marginalizing the concept of exploita- tion is a virtue, not a sin. My own view, however, is that this is a serious weakness. The marginalization of exploitation both undermines claims that classes have &dquo;objective&dquo; interests and erodes the centrality Marxists have accorded class in social theory. The concept of domination does not in and of itself imply any spec- ific interests of actors. Parents dominate small children, but this does not imply that they have intrinsically opposed interests to their child- ren. What would make those interests antagonistic is if the relation of parents to children were* exploitative as well. Exploitation, unlike domination, intrinsically implies a set of opposing material interests. If we wish to retain some sense in which the interests of individuals as members of classes are not simply whatever interests those individuals subjectively hold, then the shift to a domination-centered concept ren- ders this more difficult.7 Domination-centered concepts of class also tend to slide into what can be termed the &dquo;multiple oppressions&dquo; approach to understanding society. Societies, in this view, are characterized by a plurality of oppressions each rooted in a different form of domination-sc:cual, racial, national, economic-none of which have any explanatory prior- ity over any other. Class, then, becomes just one of many oppressions, with no particular centrality for social and historical analysis. How important class is in a given society becomes an historically contingent question.8 Again, this displacement of class from the center stage may be viewed as an achievement rather than a problem. It may be that class should not occupy a privilegeq place in social theory. But if one believes, as Marxists traditionally have believed, that only by giving class this central place ’is it possible to develop a scientific theory of the trajectory of historical development, and in particular, a theory of the real historical alternatives to capitalism, then the domination- centered concept of class risks eroding the theoretical justification for Marxian class analysis itself.99 Classes in Postcapitalist Societies Classical Marxism was absolutely unequivocal about the historical prognosis for capitalism: socialism-and ultimately communism-was Downloaded from pas.sagepub.com at Purdue University on April 20, 2015 386 the future of capitalist societies. The bearer of that necessary future was the working class. The polarized class structure within capitalism between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat thus paralleled the polar- ized historical alternatives between capitalism and socialWn’ The actual historical experience of the twentieth century has called into question, although not unambiguously refuted,,this historical vision. As I have argued elsewhere, it is necessary to at least entertain the possibility of postcapitalist class structures.1° The difficulty is that with very few exceptions, the conceptual frameworks adopted by Marxists for analyzing capitalist class relations do not contain adequate criteria for understanding postcapitalist classes)1l In particular, all of the class categories in my analysis of contradictory locations within class relations were either situated firmly within capitalist relations (bourgeoisie, managers, workers) or in contradictory locations involving basically precapitalist relations (semiautonomous employees, the petty bourgeoisie, small employers). There were no elements within this anal- ysis of class relations in capitalist society that could point the direction for the analysis of postcapitalist classes. The result is a tendency for dis- cussions of postcapitalist class structures-the class structures of &dquo;actually existing socialism&dquo;-to have a very ad hoc character to them. Given these conceptual problems-the shift from exploitation to domination and the lack of a conceptual basis for analyzing postcapital- ist classes-there are really two theoretical
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